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Newroz 2021 was celebrated by hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Turkey on Sunday.
Women who participated in the Newroz celebrations in Van (Wan), a Kurdish-majority city in eastern Turkey, spoke to Jin News regarding the isolation of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, ongoing hunger strikes in prisons, and the attempts to shut down the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Ayşe Işık said that Kurdish women will not give up the resistance amid the increasing attacks on the will of the Kurdish people. “I greet the Newroz of leader Apo”, she said with reference to Abdullah Öcalan. “We demand his freedom in this Newroz”.
”Our only demand is to live with human dignity”, said Naime Çer, another woman celebrating Newroz in Van. “We want our rights. Our only wish is the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan”.
Muhsine Yılmaz, who lost her son in a clash with the Turkish military forces, shared her demand for the freedom of all political prisoners. “Nobody has the right to shut down our party. The Kurds are not the old Kurds. Even a small Kurdish child understands the aim of their attacks. We will continue our struggle”.
The mothers are hurt by the conflict the most, according to Hamide Maykut. “We want our language and our identity to be recognised. Isolation is imposed on us in every field of life, and that is why we demand an end to it”, she said.
Vesile Atsak shared her reaction to the recent agenda of the Turkish judiciary to permanently close the HDP: “Where will they put millions of people when they close the HDP? We will continue to fight until the end. We will continue to demand our language, our identity, the freedom of our leadership’,’ she said.
”I want the freedom of Abdullah Öcalan. Enough!” said Elif Mantu. “What do you want from us? You took our lives for years, you put our people in jail. Have the Kurdish people forgot this? We have not. We will not give up our rights and our lives”.
